


Heartfelt Hairdos

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 23:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Tobirama likes to play with his brother's hair and Madara was never sure why that bothered him until now.





	Heartfelt Hairdos

**Author's Note:**

> Now including beautiful art by YanaGoya! Thank you so much! :D  
> (Find them as Aaorin on DeviantArt and show some love!)

“You know, if you stop staring, it would probably be less creepy for everyone in the room. Meaning me. I’m really creeped out right now. Please stop staring at my cousins.”

“How about you go fuck yourself?”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want to watch that but since you suggested it...”

With a noise of disgust Madara turned away from Touka, thereby also turning away from the scene which he had been staring at for the last few minutes. It was a scene he’d been witness to countless times over the past couple of years and he had yet to figure out what it was about it that bothered him so much.

Now chuckling under her breath in that brutish way of hers, Touka picked up her drink and wandered across the room to go speak with Mito. Izuna trailed after her quietly as he had been since his third shot of what Madara was fairly sure was that special brew gifted to them by the Sarutobi clan. He dismissed both of them as soon as they were out of his sight, crossing his arms and pretending to glance over the rest of the guests while he tried to convince himself he didn’t want to take another peek. 

He took another peek. 

Both of them slightly flushed with alcohol, the two Senju brothers were huddled together in one corner of the room. Tobirama sat on the very edge of his seat while Hashirama had sprawled himself on the floor between his sibling’s knees. As they chatted away, Tobirama’s hands moved in habitual patterns, combing and weaving and pinning Hashirama’s hair in to some new style he appeared to have invented on the spot. It was always a new style, never the same hairdo twice. 

Madara wished he could blame this on the alcohol but he’d seen them do this same thing in all sorts of situations. There never seemed to be a particular reason that he could decipher. It seemed as though neither one of them really gave it much thought, simply moving over to where ever the other was and immediately commencing this odd ritual wherein Tobirama would put Hashirama’s hair up somehow and fix it in place with the pins that Hashirama had taken to keeping tucked away in one of his sleeves. Stuck

Was it a general brotherly thing? Madara didn’t think so. He never felt any need to play with Izuna’s hair and the younger man’s ponytail fell down nearly as low as Hashirama’s did so that couldn’t be it. 

Perhaps the oddest part was that it only ever happened in a casual setting. For formal events when Hashirama needed to look his best he always sought out Mito, even though her creations never turned out quite the way Tobirama’s did. As far as he could tell they never spoke about it. It just...happened. 

And it bothered him, although he couldn’t have said why. It wasn’t his hair; why should he care what they did with it? 

Huffing with irritation, Madara stood up and marched in to the kitchen to refill his cup from the punch bowl he’d watched Hashirama fill earlier. With three different juices and two kinds of alcohol it was perfect for helping him deal with the spinning his head was doing by making it spin all the faster. Maybe he could get his head spinning fast enough to toss all of these strange thoughts away. Once his cup was full he skirted the edge of the gathering - noting peripherally that Hashirama’s hair was looking particularly loopy this time around - and headed out the back door. 

Stars burned brightly overhead, clearly visible in the cloudless night sky, and Madara set his eyes on them as he plopped himself halfway down the porch steps to breathe deeply of the warm summer air. The weather was absolutely perfect now that they had finally reached the end of the recent heat wave. 

It took a little while before someone found him out there. No one wanted to come look at the empty backyard when the party was still going on strong inside home of the Senju main family. Madara, on the other hand, preferred the quiet of his new spot. Quiet was surprisingly hard to come by ever since they’d built the village and he’d never been all that comfortable at parties anyway. He wasn’t exactly a people person the way Hashirama was. 

When someone did find him he was only a little startled to see who it was. Tobirama also had a notable preference for calm conversation rather than loud gatherings so when he slipped out the back door and came to sit close to Madara, it was an equal chance whether he came out here looking for the older man or if he simply wanted a place to escape for a while.

“Your brother gets less and less intelligent with every glass of punch he consumes.” 

Madara barked out a laugh. “I would be offended on his behalf were that not the truest statement I’ve ever heard. What’s he doing now?” 

“He challenged my cousin to an arm wrestle. Touka nearly flipped him off his chair.”

“Likely he was too busy staring at her to give a proper effort.” 

“He was. It was embarrassing for everyone watching.” 

“Ah well. At least he’s happy. Do you think that cousin of yours will ever actually give him the time of day? Sometimes his mooning can get a little tiresome.”

“Of course.” Tobirama paused to rethink his answer. “Eventually. I think she’s just enjoying being the center of his attention a little too much to give it up so soon. She’s more used to men fearing her than worshiping her and its going to her head a little.”

Shaking his head a little in amusement, Madara tilted his head back up to look at the stars again, picking out all the constellations that he could name. Having learned a long time ago to navigate his way home by the stars no matter where he was, it wasn’t that hard to silently rattle off most of them by rote. 

To the side and a little behind him, he could hear Tobirama shuffling around where he had perched himself on the very top step. When the noise moved to just behind himself Madara assumed the other man had had his fill of fresh air and was heading back inside. He was startled enough to jump a little bit when two feet settled themselves on either side of him and a pair of hands were suddenly winding themselves in to his hair. 

Before he had time to gather his scattered thought and demand to know what the hell his companion was doing, Tobirama was speaking again. 

“I have to admit, though, I’m rather a fan of this stage as well myself. Watching Izuna make a fool of himself will never fail to be the highlight of my day.” Madara blinked in confusion.

“What?” he croaked. 

“You know, like that time he found out her favorite flowers were the ones he’s allergic to but he picked her a giant bouquet anyway?” Tobirama’s fingers combed gently through his think tangles, starting at the temples and working their way downwards to tame the wild strands. “Not laughing in his face was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Holding back like that doesn’t seem very you,” Madara ventured. A warm chuckled drifted across his ear and he suppressed a shiver at the sound of it. 

“Normally I wouldn’t, true. He just looked so pathetic I truly didn’t have the heart to bring him any lower than he already was.” 

Madara made a small noise of agreement; he’d been there before. His brother was even better at looking pathetic than Hashirama was, although Hashirama had less and less time for goofy antics as the duties of the Hokage piled up on him. 

For a while neither of them said much. Once Tobirama was finished straightening his hair the man began to separate it and tug it in seemingly random patterns. Madara could detect no rhyme or reason to the motions and he could not possibly have guessed what was being done to his head. For all he knew his companion could be weaving him a flower crown and he would never know until it was finished. 

Still, he made no move to stop it from happening. A mere hour ago he’d been watching this from an outsider’s point of view, wondering why the sight of it bothered him so much, and now he understood. Jealousy, pure and simple. It had bothered him because he’d wished himself in Hashirama’s place. 

Having a crush was a pesky thing, especially when one was so skilled at denial that one sometimes forgot about one’s own feelings. 

“There we go. All done.”

“Eh?” Madara blinked, not having noticed that Tobirama had finished.

“Looks good on you.” 

Reaching up behind his own head, Madara patted around gently so as not to disturb anything, trying to determine by touch alone what sort of creation Tobirama had given him. The longer he probed the deeper his frown became until he swiped his hand carelessly along the top of his head. 

“It’s a  _ponytail_. All you did was put it in a ponytail!” 

“Well I used all my pins and stuff on Hashirama.”

“So what the hell took you so long then?” he demanded. Madara jumped for the second time when the hands that had been playing with his hair landed on his shoulders and Tobirama curled around his back to whisper in his ear. 

“Perhaps I was looking for an excuse to touch you for a while.”

Madara’s jaw dropped, lost for words. 

“Thank you for indulging me. If I’ve made you uncomfortable I can leave.”

“No!” Clearing his throat, Madara flushed at his own outburst. “No you’re, er, fine where you are.”

“Am I?” 

“Uh, yes?”

The hands on his shoulders slid down to drape loosely around his chest. “I hope you don’t mind but this seems a bit more comfortable.”

“No. I don’t mind.” 

With a quiet sound of content Tobirama lowered his head on to Madara’s shoulder, nuzzling close to his neck before falling still. Madara held as still as possible just in case this was a dream; he didn’t want to risk disturbing their position and accidentally waking up to reality again. 

As time went on, however, it became clearer and clearer than this was far from a dream. Tobirama’s fingers traced senseless patterns on the front of his shirt, deep voice murmuring the occasional thought in his ear, and slowly a smile grew as he accepted the fact that maybe his feelings weren’t quite as unrequited as he’d always assumed them to be. 

“Should we head back inside soon?” Tobirama asked after a while. “Eventually someone will notice that neither of us have been present for a while.”

“They’ll probably assume that we’ve both left,” Madara pointed out. It was well-known that neither of them enjoyed parties very much. 

“What then? Stay here?” 

“I’m happy where I am.”

Arms tightened around him as Tobirama hummed and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. “As am I.”

No one else ventured in to the backyard for at least another hour but by the time they did so they just missed the two men who had been seated on the porch only a few minutes before, wrapped up together and trading whispered words to see who could make the other blush the deepest.

Hashirama swayed and scratched his well-pinned head, wondering where his brother had gone. Or for that matter where Madara had disappeared to. He could have sworn he’d seen both of them earlier. With a loose shrug he turned to go back inside, unaware of the two figures who had only just left the party to make their way to a more private place to continue their conversation.


End file.
